Stories of Self Defense

SHOT Show Media Day: No “Wow” Factor in 2015

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I have to say that in years past that media day at the range has been a much better event in terms of the products being showcased, and the innovation that you see throughout the industry. I do know that there is an overall slowdown in gun sales from the buying frenzy that we had in 2013, and it seems that with the cooling of sales has come a cooling in the innovation as well.

Speaking with many other fellow media attendees this afternoon, not one of us had anything that was all that special. There just was no wow factor this year. It was more AR’s, more suppressors and more things that have already been released, talked about and covered. Even Glock’s new milled slides have kind of lost the wow factor. Gun smiths have been doing it for years. Glock has just jumped on the bandwagon to get their piece of a pie and offer the milled slide as a factory option now.

TAC-CON was there again this year and had their Raptor and 241 trigger systems that were reported on in October of last year. Gone were the long lines of 2014 and media types that were there to see the hottest new product in the industry and report back to their readers. At the 2014 Media Day getting in to shoot the 3MR trigger meant waiting in a long line for your chance to try it out. This year just seemed less enthusiastic.

I just wasn’t very impresses with anything this year, there was no wow factor. But that isn’t to say that there wasn’t fantastic products at the range. There were a lot of products out there that are well made, accurate and reliable. The problem I have is that they are tried and true products that have been around, but continue to be the best weapons the industry has to offer. They are not the cutting edge product like a .300win mag AR platform, or an entirely new Glock model. There was no company attempting a .338LM AR style rifle. I come to media day to shoot the things that make you just a wee bit nervous.

I come to media day to shoot something that is brand new to the point of failure, but only after it has had 2000 rounds put though it, without cleaning, and held up admirably. I do not come to shoot the more mundane AR’s and 1911’s or anything else that I have shot 100 times before. I come to see the best, newest, most innovative products that our industry has to offer. I just didn’t really find that this year.

But I will say with the new Sig brace ruling on Friday that there seemed to be a lot for ATF agents running around this year…

I look forward to SHOT tomorrow morning and getting out on the floor to find what is new, great and awesome. Stay tuned on the GSL Facebook page, or on my Facebook page for up to the minute updates.